How far off from your current life and daily routine is this vision of your dream life you previously described?
In previous posts I’ve shared different pieces of what my ideal or dream life would be like, and I have to say, as far as this prompt goes, I’m still a ways off.
I’m still working a full-time job, so my weekdays are occupied with that instead of writing. Also because of this, I don’t have the flexibility to go do things during the day that I currently would have to do outside of work hours or over the weekends (such as video games or going to the gym.)
Someday, maybe, if I keep at it and get lucky enough to become a published author (I’ve said this a lot, but still.)
I’ve been ever so slowly working through the Mistborn trilogy (currently on book two) but that is not the book I am primarily reading right now.
Unfortunately, I cannot divulge any details about the book I’m reading because I’m sworn to secrecy. The only thing you get to know is I’m helping a friend.
Other than those, I have a massive back log of books to read through, and I keep adding more! I might have a problem.
I sometimes forget that my siblings are very much like myself when it comes to our interests or the things that really intrigue us. For instance, my older brother has been getting back into drawing and sketching in the last few years, and has also been dabbling with 3d printing.
So, this past weekend I had stopped back down to visit my siblings after spending time with Dad, and my brothers and I were chatting about the makeshift workshop setup in one of the garages (my brothers live next to each) as well as the little project my older brother was working on. He had designed and 3d printed some tool guides and jigs to go along with some 3d printed mounting brackets for a portable tabletop easel he was making out of an old chair or something. The discussion eventually turned back towards some of my own projects, like the life sized Charmander that I’ve been painting, and I was telling them about the predicament I’m in with completing it. (I don’t have a separate workshop space, and airbrushing leads to fumes in the basement where my little hobby desk is.) So, we looked things over in the garage, talked about environmental factors, and tried to determine if it would be feasible for me to continue the project down there. Given that it’s getting colder now, it may not be a good idea because we would need a shop heater (my younger brother’s concern was fumes igniting, which is completely valid) and there may be too much saw dust yet around that can be kicked up (my older brother said he would look at getting the space better cleaned up) but we’ll see what they can solve for in the next couple weeks, as I might still take them up on the offer around Thanksgiving.
In the meantime, I am trying to create a temporary enclosure for my hobby space so that I can prevent excessive fumes from propagating throughout the basement because I’ll still have other projects even beyond working on Charmander that will require some kind of airbrushing.
I regret to inform you all that I still have not found it. I was even recently back home in my old room but I totally spaced looking for it because I was busy helping my dad with cleaning since he is recovering from hip surgery. (He’s doing great, by the way, no concerns with his mobility, it’s just that he lives in a 120+ year old farm house and the stairs up to the second story are steep and narrow. Not something I want him attempting to traverse only three weeks or so after surgery.)
I’ll have to make a special note in my phone to remind myself to go looking for it. There’s some neat things (to me, anyways) that are still hiding up in my old room that I could probably share here! Fingers crossed I remember.
This prompt immediately sparked a memory to come flying up out of the depths of my mind, and I couldn’t help but want to share it.
I must have been two or three years old at the time, and my family lived in a town called Castlerock. Surprisingly enough, despite how long ago this was (over 30 years), I still have a few semi-solid memories, but there is one that involved a little toy helicopter that I feel like I’ll never fully forget. Looking back on it, I know that part of it was a dream I had, and I’m not sure how the lines of dream and reality blurred, but I had experienced something that in hindsight obviously could not have happened.
This little toy helicopter I had is probably impossible to find now, but I can remember some of the key characteristics fairly well. The body of it was clear plastic so you could see the inner working and had a red plastic propeller. As I recall, it was a wind-up toy that could spin the propeller fairly quickly.
Now, there are two important pieces to this memory. As I mentioned earlier, there is a dream portion. In the dream I was able to make the little helicopter fly, and it went down the hall and into my bedroom. From there the line blurs. I remember being so excited that something like this could have happened, and I took the little toy and ran to my older brother wanting to show him. I wound it up the same as I had done before and when the propeller started to spin I held it out, my hand flat, to proudly show him. But it didn’t take off. So I tried to toss it into the air, only to watch it tumble to the floor. I tried at least once more before my brother got bored and walked away uninterested in the wild imagination of a toddler.
Sadly, I never again saw that little toy helicopter fly under it’s own power in my dreams, but what surprises me most about this whole scenario is that it’s not just the earliest memory I have, but it’s likely the first dream I ever had that I could remember in any capacity.
What are the biggest challenges you’re facing right now? How can you work to overcome them?
There are a handful of things I’m dealing with regularly that I don’t often share with anyone. Not with family. Not with friends. And certainly not with coworkers.
Am I going to share them here? Well, some of them, but only because I know myself well enough that I can handle those particular challenges on my own because I’ve done so before and know the steps I need to personally take. Others I’m still evaluating and may need to reach out and talk to certain people. I’ll leave those as private for the time being.
The ones I can share are personal goal, drive, and motivation oriented challenges.
Work has slowed down some, and my team is at a bit of a lull (but not a total standstill) for things that we might normally be doing on a regular basis. I have work available to me that I’m building up, but it’s a very slow build because it’s dependent on other people having the time and bandwidth to connect. These lulls, and “hurry up and wait” situations cause me to struggle to be productive with my current workload. I get things done in a timely enough fashion, but it still leaves me feeling a little empty. It saps my mental energy. I fall into a rut, and then it spills over into my private life a little bit at a time. I’m at my strongest when I have a “full plate” and am pushing my boundaries/limits to get things done. I’m the kind of person who works better under a little bit of pressure. So, how do I manage that right now? I have to remind myself that it’s okay to wait it out. I keep my manager informed of the way I’m feeling and we find work that needs doing (like updating internal team documentation and such) but I have to make sure I’m moderating myself as well. I can’t take it all on, or else there’s nothing for the rest of my team, and I risk burning through it all too quickly and just falling back into the rut.
How do I prevent it from spilling into my private life after all of that? I’m fortunate enough that my manager and the rest of my team are wonderful people and appreciate the intricacies of work/life balance. This allows me the flexibility to take time during the day to check on personal things. Taking a few minutes here and there to research things for my hobbies. Running errands for friends and family, and even sometimes my coworkers when they’re feeling a crunch in their own time. I “put myself to work” but in a different fashion to keep my mind engaged and try to force myself out of the rut and not lose too much of that mental energy.
On a more specific personal note, with trying to stay out of the rut in my private life, I’m making sure that I’m always aware of the sneaking feelings of imposter syndrome that try to creep in and keep me from writing. Self-managing those feelings is tough, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I may need to constantly remind myself of a few things. Nobody else will put your ideas on the page if they stay locked in your head. Even if what you write is something that seems similar to another writer, you still need to write it to get the experience or else you won’t grow and improve. If you leave that idea stuck in your head, never writing it out because of it being similar, then you won’t free yourself from it and be able to think of something new. Just write it out. It won’t actually hurt you.
Of course, external validation helps, but depending on the kind it is, it just feels like a crutch, or a double-edged sword.
So, for the time being, a lot of what I’m experiencing right now is just requiring patience and consistency. I just need to keep moving forward.
The last time this question came around, I had a list of a handful of podcasts that I had been listening to up to that point. Unfortunately, I’ve backed off of that list. I just haven’t made a lot of time to listen to them. I’ll still go through a couple items, though.
First off, the Writing Excuses podcast is something I still occasionally listen to, and I even made my own playlist (click here if you’re interested in learning about what they call the Elemental Genres) for one of the particular years that had structured content. I go back from time to time and listen to this subset of their content because I find it fascinating how they deconstructed stories into easily identifiable themes/genres. Each listen through I’m either learning something new/connecting new dots or I’m being reminded of something that I should go back and check in my own writing.
The other podcasts in the 2023 posts have fallen off substantially in my routine. Instead, I’ve ended up listening to a lot of D&D Live Play content this year. Particularly Legends of Avantris when I’m working on my painting/printing projects. They’re an absolutely hilarious group that I discovered through animated scenes that get shared in Reels or Shorts.
I should probably go back and look through the rest of the podcasts I used to listen to and maybe see about working them into my listening routine again. We’ll see, though, because there is only so much time in the day.
Something I started doing, and in hindsight I should have known better, is playing my daily NYT games (Wordle, Connections, etc.) while in bed if I happened to be awake after midnight. This has been a problem for several months now. I’ll go to bed late, can’t fall asleep, see the time, and play. Then my brain is awake because I’m trying to get a daily habit done early.
It also doesn’t help that I installed a scissor-arm mount near the head of my bed so I can hold my phone above me without fear of dropping it on my face. I really should take it down and put it back on my hobby desk and get my old tablet running again. (Then I just need to make sure my phone isn’t next to me when I lay down.)
No special post today, and no I’m not going to talk about specific politics. I just want to make sure that I say “Go vote” because it’s the right thing to do.
Last time, I mentioned that I suck at planning for my own future, and this still holds true, but let’s see where I’ve made progress.
Do I own a home yet? Nope, but I still have a couple years to go.
Same goes for publishing a novel. I have a couple projects I’m working on simultaneously (which is kind of bad because then I’m not being consistent enough to knock one out yet) but I have a plan for distributing one of them at least!
The student loans thing? Well, as it turned out there was a major class-action lawsuit taking place over the last several years that finally came to a close which led to the federal government forgiving my student loans (and, to be clear, this is NOT in any way associated to whatever the president had been trying to accomplish).
Romantic relationship news: still nothing, but again, as far as the “three years” thing goes, I still have time.
Visiting friends in other States and countries? Very soon I’m going to a wedding in a different State and meeting some of those very same friends I had planned to meet! Which includes the ones in another country!!
The motorcycle is a low priority, especially if I’m hoping to buy a house, so I honestly forgot I had that listed. At this point, if I can get the house thing sorted out, I’d probably settle on renovations for the home so that I could have a proper hobby space.
A second novel is definitely not happening, at least not in the same vain as the first.
I mentioned in the end of that first post that I didn’t have plans and I still really don’t. I’m just kind of winging it. Again.
The Dragon's Grove 